One of the many reasons I got back into Transformers is I felt they helped develop a certain mental skill set. The ability to transform an item from A to B. I usually take one fresh from the box, put the manual a side and go at it until I give in and look at the manual.

Well, I just did Titain's Return Chromedome from start to finish without a manual...

Its a good sign! Its what I love about Combiner Wars and Titans Return - they're fun, quick and easy to transform and have decent articulation. I don'tmiss the joyless fiddle-fests of the ROTF line (although I did feel that was right for those more complex designs).

Mmm. They're definitely hitting a sweet spot of old toy style low complexity but modern toy posing options, even if the paint apps have gone AWOL in a lot of cases.

I do allow myself before and after photos sometimes to try to get an official transformation before seeing what tweaks are worth it, but generally only feel I should give in to instructions if something seems fragile or has reviews that suggest that. On the other hand, some stuff doesn't get handled a great deal at all because I'm most a bot mode displayer. It's the potential more than the fiddle factor -- I like enough kibble to indicate an alt mode clearly.

This. Usually when I feel like something should move, but doesn't, I don't trust my hands to not break it - therefore, instructions.

Otherwise, like Denyer & Skyquake have mentioned, the CW and TR lines have largely made figures easy and fun to transform. Most of the ones I buy these days are fiddled with long before I bust out the instructions, and a good portion of the instruction-less are met with success. I think that type of thing says a lot about the new take on designs. And I feel like I fiddle with these bots much more than I did all the over-engineered Universe-era stuff.

To be fair, Chromedome's transformation sequence is almost exactly like Dead End and company's from Combiner Wars, so if you are familiar with them you can manage Chromedome without much effort.

But yes, over all the toys have been getting simpler and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather have a toy on the simple side then, say, another Universe Galvatron. Thankfully simple does not have to mean uninteresting. There have been several Titans Return figures, and a few Combiner Wars ones, that I found fun and interesting to transform.